When I trust deeply that today God is truly with me and holds me safe in a divine embrace, guiding every one of my steps I can let go of my anxious need to know how tomorrow will look, or what will happen next month or next year. I can be fully where I am and pay attention to the many signs of God’s love within me and around me.
Henri Nouwen
This is a strange time. The world is in transition. Society is in transition. My neighbourhood is in transition. My family is in transition. The church is in transition.
I am in transition.
No, I am not changing my gender, although aging changes the way people relate to us older folk. It’s as if we are neutered by grey hair and wrinkles. No longer considered “marketable,” there is an unexpected freedom in not having to find my value in the ability to attract a mate to potentially procreate with when I already have one who has stuck with me going on 53 years, and having children at this point in life is, literally, inconceivable. Yet, the pressure to look young and attractive is incessant. (What a baffling game that is.)
I am, however, still changing. As the apostle Paul wrote, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:10-14 NIV)
I woke from a time pressure/anxiety dream far too early this morning. In the dream I was poking around my house, procrastinating as usual. When a moving truck pulled up in the driveway, I suddenly remembered this was the day we were supposed to move out of the old family house into something more suitable for our stage of life. I had done nothing in the way of downsizing or packing or arranging for movers. The woman, who had her young children in tow, stepped out of the truck. She was so excited to move into her new house that had become a burden for me.
In the dream, I lied to her. I told her our truck broke down, so we couldn’t move out on time. She said, “Well, we’ll just have to get you another truck.” She left me with no excuses not to keep to our agreement.
I woke, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the prospect of everything I needed to do in the process of change. I realized exhaustion is not about packing up housewares; it’s about cooperating with the Lord to move into increasing holiness, greater acts of love, and deeper relationship with Him. I’m dilly dallying.
I felt like the dream was saying, “Get a move on!” As I prayed, I also remembered that even in transition and all of the upheaval and sorting and tossing things I no longer need, and carefully packing and preserving others to take with me, I can let go of anxiety and find joy in this moment of uncertainty and change. I can still rest in the certainty of God’s faithfulness. There is a place of quiet rest in the current view of this season that is the alternating too warm/too cold/too warm/too cold unusual climate of change. Life, even at seventy years old, is lived in a place of disrupting process and increasing trust.
He’s not finished with me yet.
I don’t know what the the future holds, but I know Who holds the future, and I know the One who loves me enough to keep investing in me by poking and prodding me to get a move on. There is more. He still holds me in a divine embrace. He’s got this.
His voice is calling, “Get up! Get a move on! We’ve got things to do today.” Can you hear it too?
Genuine trust involves allowing another to matter and have an impact in our lives. For that reason, many who hate and do battle with God trust Him more deeply than those whose complacent faith permits an abstract and motionless stance before Him. Those who trust God most are those whose faith permits them to risk wrestling with Him over the deepest questions of life. Good hearts are captured in a divine wrestling match; fearful, doubting hearts stay clear of the mat.
Dan B. Allender
I’m a verbal processor. This, plus a tendency to take up causes before I have all the information from all sides, has landed me in more trouble than anything else. A verbal processor says things right out Ioud that they may toss away later. They are on the way to something else, but for people who don’t operate this way, it’s hard to tell what’s process and what’s conclusion.
I was thinking out loud in the presence of someone who not only did not understand my struggle with an issue, she did not understand why it should even be an issue, nor why I was saying such disturbing things.
“Why do you have to ask so many questions? Why can’t you just believe?”
I looked at her sweet face and said nothing. What I wanted to say was, “Because it matters. Because this is a piece of the puzzle that other pieces labeled “choices” need to make connection to to understand who God really is. Because who God really is what really matters.”
I’ve heard people say that they can’t be bothered with doctrine (which, ironically, is a doctrine in itself.) For some it’s true that deeper study is not necessary. I think of a lovely friend with Down’s syndrome. Her entire theology could be summed up in her statement, “Jesus loves me and I love Jesus.” True and beautiful. So why can’t I just believe everything I’ve been told? Why have I gone through periods in my life when I need more?
I believe it’s about relationship. One of the ways I connect with God is when he gives me a puzzle or presents a question I can’t answer. I had a dream once where I was a child sitting on the floor with a kind person who was helping me connect shaped metal puzzle pieces into a mat about a meter square. I thought we were done and congratulated myself by clapping my hands like a preschooler. Then he started building the puzzle pieces upwards into an incredibly complex cube. I protested. That was entirely too hard and too much work. He looked at me kindly and said, “Stop thinking in two dimensions.” I recognized him at that moment. It was Jesus. Then he disappeared.
I’ve been in a time of puzzling with God lately. It feels too hard. There are too many pieces, too many levels, too many parts that have been forced to work when they don’t really fit and that could throw the structure off balance later. I’ve also been talking out loud a lot as I wrestle with this thing. Sweet people look at me with the same expression as the impatient woman who said, “Why do you have to ask so many questions? Why can’t you just believe?” (Now that I think of it, she wasn’t asking for my answer. She had no questions that sent her running to God in frustration and an answer without questions is just another boring lecture.)
When I read Dan Allender’s quote, I realized I am one of those who is called to wrestle with God. I know I can never comprehend his vast majesty with my tiny mind. It’s like a microbe in a match with a universe of galaxies. Wrestling is about engaging. It’s about responding to an invitation to join him on the mat and play a demanding, frustrating, multi-leveled complex game that’s probably going to trigger some anger. Maybe a lot of anger.
He comes quietly, almost silently beside me, then flips my entire perspective and triggers overwhelmingly deep and difficult questions. Then he asks if I want to play.
I say, “Are you kidding? This is way too hard for me.”
Don’t worry about having the right words; worry more about having the right heart. It’s not eloquence he seeks, just honesty.
Max Lucado
I remember, as a child, listening to two women disagree about the proper way to do something in church. Both believed that if something was worth doing, it was worth doing well. Both believed there was a right and wrong way to do things. Both believed their way was the right way. Voices were rising, but not in praise. Finally one said, “Well, we’ll just pray about that and see who God listens to.” She stomped off.
That scenario stuck with me. Even as a child I knew something was off. I didn’t know how to pray properly. In fact, nothing scared me off praying with other people more than being told I was doing it wrong by those who seemed to be in God’s favour. (I wrote about that here in Praying Naked).
Today I was reading this passage in the fourth chapter of Philippians. Amusingly (to me anyway), it comes right after the Apostle Paul urges two women, Euodia and Syntyche, to make more of an effort to be of the same mind as the Lord and get along with each other. Immediately I the memory of the two “prayer warriors” from my childhood.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
Let your gentleness be evident to all.
The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (verses 4 to 7)
I’ve been in a lot of religious settings in my life. Sadly, I’ve witnessed a lot of broken hearts in the wake of “doing things right” when right was defined by a person or institution whose need to be right surpassed the need to be gentle and extend love and grace to those who didn’t measure up to their standards. Even the disciples argued amongst themselves about who Jesus liked best and who would be greatest in the kingdom.
Servants, slaves, and employees may jostle for positions of greater trust and authority through superior performance. It’s their way of trying to earn security by being the most useful and therefore most valued asset. There’s a reason why Jesus told them, before he was crucified and rose again, that he considered them friends. Their position was secure because he loved them. That’s it. It’s all based on love. And he asked them to love one other as he and the Father love.
I am so painfully aware of the number of wounded believers rejected or left behind or still scrambling desperately for approval by those who determine themselves to be most loved. Somedays it feels like grief. Someday I just want to weep, but I am reminded that I am guilty myself of turning this whole prayer thing into some sort of me-first competition too.
There is so much more to this one-anothering thing than we think. All I know is that we are urged to be one in the Spirit. Unity is not to be found in our efforts or methods. Unity is found in God. God is love. He cannot love us any less than he already does, nor can he love us any more than he already does.
I am loved. You are loved. Let’s start praying together by rejoicing in that fact.
The fires are still raging in British Columbia, but the closest one to us is mostly contained. Today’s smoke is from controlled burns. Fighting fire with fire. We hope.
I’ve noticed a strange mix of emotions in people right now. The apostle Paul wrote that people who show mercy need to learn to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. I was in a place this week where I listened to three different people in different circumstances on the same day. It was a day of weeping and rejoicing.
One was rejoicing that her prayers were answered. Their property in West Kelowna was in a pocket the fire skipped over. Their house and neighbourhood remain untouched. Another woman, a single mother with four children, lost everything except the items they grabbed and stashed in the car as they fled the encroaching flames. She loves the Lord and prayed just as much, but the fire didn’t skip over her neighbourhood. In fact, the area that included 150 rental units was totally destroyed. Another family is still awaiting word on the condition of their property and has not yet returned home.
Then there is our own story. We watched the progression of the fire from a safe distance in our steel and concrete building in a mostly commercial area of the city. We suffered from the smoke and considered joining the thousands who fled the area on both sides of the lake, but decided that sitting in stop-and-go traffic for hours in heavy smoke might be harder on our health than staying home with windows closed and AC on. (I wish now I had bought that air purifier when I saw it on sale last March.) I guess we suffer from a bit of survivor’s guilt.
Conversations with virtually everyone after a dramatic disaster like the Grouse Complex Wildfire in the Kelowna area usually begin with the question, “Are you alright?” and “Did you see it when the giant flames reflected in the water? Where were you when it jumped the lake?” We tell our stories as a way of processing something we hoped to never experience. For some, faith in God, no matter what, has increased. Others struggle to believe that God cares or that anything good could come out of this. They feel abandoned. This is trauma in real time.
I was planning to visit my cousin’s flower farm when she posted photos of the huge plume of smoke that drifted over their place on the first day of the Westside fire. They postponed their annual public tour until conditions improved. This past Sunday, I told my dear cousin and her gardener husband about the conversations I had been having as we walked in the garden. I guess weeping and rejoicing were still on my mind when they gave me permission to take my camera and stay as long as I wanted in the area where they grow many varieties of dahlias.
This is what the flowers reminded me of. We all experienced the falling ash from trees and structures going up in flame but on this day, I was ready to shake off the ashes like the gardener shook ashes off the flowers. It’s time to be who God made me to be. I’ve learned from experience to pay attention to the condition of my heart as soon as I am able after a time of trouble. It’s possible, even necessary, to bracket feelings and tend to practical needs at first, but setting them aside indefinitely leads to problems later. I need to process.
All of the flowers in this garden are dahlias, but they can be quite different in their expression of dahlia-ness. Some are small, tidy domed bundles in sedate colours with mathematically determined petal distribution. Some are exuberant semi-chaotic displays of bold colors Mom would have warned me to never to wear side by side. The flowers were all dahlias. They all had similar structure, but I was amazed by the diversity on display. They reminded me of the different types of people I have listened to this week.
Some people respond to times of fear-inducing uncertainty with a need for decently-and-in-order control. Some seem to display a limited range of emotions like a black and white photo. Just-the-facts people. Many of our friends and neighbours who’ve watched fire devour memories and investments in their now destroyed homes are weeping, stunned by the magnitude of loss. They are wondering what they did wrong and struggling to get back a measure of control. Others, freed from the restraints of police-enforced evacuation orders, or triggering isolation behind closed doors and windows whilst wearing those wretched face masks (again), react to the signs of increasing freedoms with relief. They may experience a sudden flurry of creative expression with the messiness of a little adult ADD distraction mixed in.
I can do both and often do. Alternately and simultaneously. In times of trouble, organization is essential to survival. I make lists. When the crisis is over, freedom is essential to creative re-building and emotional expression. I might paint a chair or take photos and write an article for my blog while I ask, “What does all this mean, Lord? How should I respond? How do I relate to you and others without letting disappointment taint everything?”
The problem in our relationships often occurs when we are transitioning from crisis to healing in different ways and on different timetables. The helpless can become the hopeless. Some people tend to follow a drive to create order and want to try to control as much as possible. They set more rules, guidelines, protocols, or whatever works for them so this doesn’t happen again. They want to impose discipline via flow charts on both the somebody-look-after-me types and the don’t-fence-me-in types. Disappointed creative freedom lovers, on the other hand, tend to resent restrictions. They may avoid energy-sapping overt battles over control by going all passive/aggressive –in a original way, of course. What we don’t understand is that both extremes are responding to fear – fear of being out of control and fear of being controlled.
Either way, living in fear opens the door to conflict and unhealthy ways of thinking that come after disappointment and a loss of innocence. Bad things can happen to good people. Prayers do not always receive the answer we want. What now? When the devil senses vulnerability, he says, “Oh. You are disappointed and angry. I can help you with that.” Listening to his prompts stirs up anger and unforgiveness that, when it sits around too long, can congeal into bitterness as hard as concrete.
Needing to be in control, needing to be controlled and needing to avoid being controlled become the habits of fearful bitter people. Over-controlled people feel disrespected and fall into resentment and distrust. Controlling people, especially those who seek positions of power, also feel disrespected. They distrust uncooperative types and respond with tighter controls. Over-controlled people respond to more control with more distrust while the hopeless watch… We see that cycle playing out far too often in the world around us.
There is no peace in the garden until we take responsibility for turning to the the One who knows us best and loves us most. He is the one who offers healing for our own wounds. In the process, we need to stop to recognize that our way may not the right way or the only way. Our way may inflict more wounds and contribute to the distrust/control cycle and the growing snowball we would dearly love to heave at someone someday. We need to acknowledge that we do not live in a vacuum and our behaviour does affect others.
It is so easy to discard people who don’t see things the same way we do. Much of the division so many of us have seen become entrenched in our communities is based on fear of pain or loss. We may have a diminishing store of grace for people who fail to read the room and instead rejoice while others weep or weep while others rejoice.
The answer? I believe the Holy Spirit’s character is revealed by the fruit of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-governance. His grace empowers us to break the cycle by supplying the necessary qualities to respond his way when we seek it instead of relying on our own strength. He gives us love that counteracts fear, and kindness to return for lack of caring, and the ability to govern ourselves faithfully while allowing others the freedom to make choices the way he does.
Anyway, that’s what the Creator of beautiful people in community and lovely flowers in a garden communicated to me through diversity in dahlias. My opinions, as usual, are subject to change as I learn and heal and grow. I leave you with photos taken in the garden. What do you see?
I took this photo yesterday evening from the condominium where we live. I saw the smoke all afternoon, but when my neighbour across the hall invited me to see the view from her balcony, I saw the flames.
A huge fire caused thousands to be evacuated from their homes across the lake from us here in Kelowna, British Columbia. I have friends and family on the west side and was very concerned for their safety. I assured concerned friends from elsewhere that the fire was over there and we were alright on this side of the lake.
Last night, the fire jumped the lake. Embers flew across the water and landed on the other side in dry vegetation ready to burst into flame. I’m hearing about people we know not far from here evacuating in the middle of the night. It’s more than an opportunity for dramatic photos now.
A couple of days ago, someone asked if you cold sing theology. I think they meant the dry theories about the study of God that people argue over, the kind of hot air balloon detached from any real experience that causes “experts” with large vocabularies to drone on endlessly. I agree that theory devoid of experiential knowledge of the Holy can just be another source of contention. I also believe that theology that is what we think about God, and doctrine that is what we believe about God enough to act on in a crisis is one of he most important considerations we will ever make.
Can I sing theology? Yes I can. I used one of my favourite hymns, How Firm a Foundation, as an example. Today, with flames consuming a nearby hillside as I watch the winds pick up and the flag over the supermarket shift directions, a verse from that song is more relevant than ever.
When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply; The flame shall not harm thee; I only design Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
There is so much in those four short lines. Fiery trials happen. Our cries of “Why God?” are less likely to be answered than “What do you want me to see about you that I couldn’t see any other way?”
I’ll let you know.
In the meantime, prayers for our city and its citizens to be come through this time safely are welcome. For that matter, we need prayer for this entire country, especially the west and the northern territories were fires have raged for weeks. Prayers that we would come out as refined gold, freed from the kind of entanglements that hold us back spiritually are even more welcome.
My friend gave me some seed she collected after I complimented her garden last summer. It amazes me to see what can grow from an ugly tiny brown thing in an envelope. I didn’t think I could grow zinnias in a pot on my balcony, but I planted and watered them anyway. Now look.
May the Lord grant us the ability to see the beauty in people when they are still in their unimpressive stage. May we give them a chance anyway.
Charis: Subject to Change 